The Golden Rule Revised

I am not going to say what you think I'm going to say.

I hear a lot of people saying that a good practice is to follow The Golden Rule when working with people with intellectual disabilities. "Do unto others" makes things easy and works every time, so we are told. Much as I hate to go against such a positive sentiment, I wonder if that is the best way to work with others.

People - including people with disabilities - are so unique. We are all so different in our individuality. To say that all people want to be treated the same does not show consideration and acceptance for our many differences.

I think people assume that everyone universally wants to be greeted with a smile, for example.  It may be true that many of us like to be greeted with a smile, but not all of us do. I remember when a young woman whom I had just met firmly told me to stop smiling at her and that it was bothering her.

Does everyone really want to be treated the same? Well, we all presumably want to be treated with dignity and respect but one person's definition of dignity differs from another's.

Or how about independence? Some of us would love to be served our meals rather than cooking our own meals for ourselves. If I treated someone as I like to be treated, I would have them sit down to a beautiful vegetarian meal of my choosing. I'd serve them every bit of it and enjoy doing so. If I did that at a group home, I'd be fostering dependence and that's not what we do. In that case, I wouldn't be encouraging and supporting people to make their own choices for themselves, I wouldn't be listening to what their preferences are,  I wouldn't be helping them gain skills to use, and I wouldn't be letting them acquire the pride from a job well-done.

The Golden Rule can probably be used in broad categories. As a society, we know that humans should not be exploited and that none of us want to be exploited by others. We know that humans do not want to be abused, although our definitions probably differ on what abuse is. We all want to be treated as if we are important, so TGR would apply there, perhaps. Again, it's about how we each individually define these terms.

How about this: We treat others how THEY would like to be treated, not how WE would like to be treated? So the revision is: Do Unto Others Based on How They Prefer to be Treated.